Subject: One theory
Author:
Posted on: 2011-09-06 22:33:00 UTC
This is one of TVtropes's "Fandom-Specific Plots" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FandomSpecificPlot, under "Harry Potter"). According to that page, it "originated as a fanfic-writing challenge on a Snape/Hermione mailing list." And I guess for whatever reason, the concept just became really popular with the fandom at large.
Not that I have anything against them, they can be well-written (Sturgeons Law applies though, so 90% are crap), but I have one question:
Where does the Marriage Law "genre" (one can call it that) come from? I certainly do not remember it from canon and I haven't seen a fandom where it's that prevalent.
Also, feel free to collect Marriage Law fics (both of the good and bad variety) here.
PS: The fic that brought me to this:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7124132 (Mainly Snape/Hermione)
I usually avoid Marriage Contract stories on the basis of finding cross-generational pairing generally squicky but I found a rare one... that I liked. I ran into this interesting example in my trevails through the Pit of Voles. Yes, the contract turned out to be fake but...
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7306781/1/The_Contract
Perhaps it's my shipping inclinations or my funnybone, but in light of the despairing turns the Authors current project is taking (thus alientating many of the current reviewers) I found it quite nice. And that's despite the possible OOCness (being a fanoneer now, My scale is rather imprecise) and general ridiculousness of the scenario.
This is one of TVtropes's "Fandom-Specific Plots" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FandomSpecificPlot, under "Harry Potter"). According to that page, it "originated as a fanfic-writing challenge on a Snape/Hermione mailing list." And I guess for whatever reason, the concept just became really popular with the fandom at large.
There is a question on some Mary Sue Litmus tests that asks: is she trying to escape an arranged marriage?
I'm not into HP and haven't clicked the link, but by "Marriage Law" I imagine you mean: the law says that so and so have to get married. And not some law that says: two people voluntarily sign a contract that they will take care of each other and the law offers them certain tax benefits.
So the idea of forced marriage is a trope across fandoms. It's just that there's more room to imagine there will be laws that force marriage among wizards because they have a different culture.
Arranged marriages may seem romantic to those that never have to deal with them.
I'm not big into HP fanfic myself. But from the link, apparently the pureblood families are severely inbred (which does seem to match canon), so a law was passed requiring marriages between purebloods and Muggleborn/halfbloods. It's more a eugenics measure than a true arranged marriage, but there may be some elements of "arranged marriage is romantic" in the fics.
I've seen ones that go way beyond a eugenics program to keep the in-breeding down. I've seen a couple (and I don't read that much HP) that involve forced marriages as part of the punishment scheme for death eaters. It isn't pleasant.
Forced marriage as punishment??
Another community I'm in had to clamp down hard on the mouthier childfree types, but I don't think even they would have gone that far.
This almost makes me want to get into HP fandom so I can take on those fics.
The punishments often involve bearing a certain number of children.
One of them that I read was that all those even sympathetic to the Death Eaters were arrested and given a potion to make them get pregnant (male and female) and were then only given in 'marriage' to the first person to impregnate them by force (in the Ministry offices, no less). The potion also bound their magic and the magic of their babies, and gave them some kind of disease that made them slowly starve to death over a year or two. Oh yeah and wizard babies can't be bottle fed, so the babies whose 'mothers' died then starved to death. The first chapter starts with Harry severing all ties with everyone he ever liked in the books and raping Snape. It was a long fic, and somehow managed to be one of those that is like a train wreck or some other disaster that you just can't look away from.
I know that one. It is indeed horrible.